PPL School launch politics podcast

The School of Politics, Philosophy and Languages (PPL) have begun the academic year with launching a podcast helping to improve interactivity in students’ learning and encourage debate on topical issues in the fields of society, media and culture. The podcast will be hosted by Clare Precey, lecturer and BBC broadcast journalist, and Politics lecturer, Alan Finlayson.

‘Politics at the Edge’ will feature contributions from various PPL lecturers, giving insight on their specialist areas, as well as guest contributors, who so far include former Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, broadcaster Iain Dale of LBC radio, and the former Editor of The Guardian, Alan Rusbridger.

The first podcast, titled ‘Alternative Facts?’ was released on 24 September, exploring the way in which political communication has changed in an increasingly digitised age. A further two have been released since, exploring topics such as the implications of a post-Brexit Britain and the decline of trust levels within news media audiences. These episodes have featured other PPL academics such as Professor John Street and Dr Sally Broughton-Micova.

Explaining his reasons for creating the podcast, Finlayson said “With so much going on in politics right now, it’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day blow-by-blow of who said what to whom. We think it’s important to take a step back and think about the wider context, the cultural, historical and technological background to what is happening in society and politics.”

Clare Precey emphasised the importance of student involvement within the project, explaining that some of UEA’s Journalism students “have been a part of the production team, recording interviews with contributors”. She added that projects such as this are made with the intention of viewing important political issues from outside the ‘Westminster Bubble’.

The podcast has been made available on iTunes, which can be found by searching for “Politics at the Edge”, as well as on ‘Eastminster’, the UEA Politics blog site at http://www.ueapolitics.org